No Second Chances
by DJ Winston
Summary: A fugitive leaves Abby and a severely injured Gibbs to die. Can Abby figure out how to escape? Will they be found in time?
1. Chapter 1

No Second Chances

It had been a long day. It was nearly 11:30 when Gibbs came down to the lab. The crew had spent the day searching for fugitive Nathan West, but he seemed to elude them at every turn.

"Abby, it's really late," Gibbs said, "Let me give you a ride home."

Gibbs knew her car was still in the shop.

Exhausted, she accepted.

They had only been on the road for about 10 minutes when a truck came careening from a side street. "Hold on Abbs," Gibbs shouted as they were hit broad-side. Abby heard a thud and the sound of breaking glass.

The impact with the truck pushed them across the opposite lane, over a small embankment, and flipped the car.

Then there was silence and everything went dark.

*** ***

Abby opened her eyes.

It was dark and her head hurt. "Where am I," she thought, "What happened?"

The room was cold and damp and smelled faintly of dirt.

As she stood up, her head began pounding and she raised her hand to her mouth fearing she was going to be sick. She stood still for a moment trying to let the feeling pass and trying to remember what had happened.

Gibbs, he was driving her home. "Gibbs?" she whispered.

At first she heard nothing. Then she heard a choking sound. Anxiously, she started searching for light. As her hands traveled along the wall, she found a light switch. A low-volt bulbdimly revealed the room.

It was a small room, windowless and cold. Shelves lined the walls and there was an old wooden ladder leading up to a door. The room looked like an old cellar. There were rusted gardening tools, old, burlap potatoes sacks, and small glass jars full of odds and ends.

Gibbs was lying in the corner. His breathing was labored and he was shivering.

"Gibbs! Are you okay?" Abby asked, knowing that he wasn't.

Gibbs tried to talk, but his voice was gurgled. Trying to raise his head he whispered, "Abbs."

"Your injured," she said, "Oh my God, Gibbs, what's wrong?"

She knelt down to examine him.

His shirt was caked with blood and his breaths were shallow and labored. Pulling up his shirt, she found a small wound near his ribcage. It looked like a bullet hole, but when did this happen? She couldn't remember anything and now she was trapped in a cellar and Gibbs was dying. Tears welled up in her eyes.

"Pull yourself together," she said to herself. "You can't help him if you fall apart. Gibbs needs your help." He had always taken care of her—had promised that nothing bad would happen. Now he needed her help or he was going to die.

She grabbed his shirttail and held it firmly against the wound.

"Take a breath Gibbs," she pleaded, "Please breath."

He inhaled deeply and then coughed violently. Flecks of blood splattered on her shirt and arms and he moaned in pain. He couldn't breath. There was a wheezing sound every time he took a breath.

Abby had seen this type of wound before—although it had been on a TV show. A young girl had fallen through a glass door and had a shard of glass pierce her chest. A neighbor had initially treated her by placing a piece of plastic over the wound and taping it down on three sides. There wasn't time to waste and she had no other ideas.

Frantically, Abby began searching the shelves for supplies. There was an old dusty role of duct tape. Plastic…where was some plastic? In the corner was a plastic bag full of potting soil. Ripping the bag, she emptied the soil and tore a 5" by 5" scrap of plastic from the bag. She rubbed it against her shirt in a futile attempt to clean it off. Placing the cleaner side down, she laid it over the wound and taped down the top and edges.

"This will help Gibbs, hold on for me, please." She rolled up a burlap sack and placed it under his head. Then, she gently rolled him onto his injured side to help compress the wound.

Abby sat observing him for a moment, hoping that she has made the right call, and that this might really work.

After a few minutes, Gibbs began to breath more easily but he was still violently shivering.

"Shock," Abby suddenly surmised, "He's going into shock."

She took off her jacket and covered Gibbs. Then, she grabbed two more burlap sacks, covered him and tucked them under his chest and knees. Finally, she laid down behind him in a spoon position, using her body to help warm him. As she draped her arm over his side, she felt his hand grasp hers tightly and pull it against his chest.

"You can't die on me Gibbs," she cried, "You just can't."

Abby nestled her face into the back of his hair. As she did, she realized that she'd never been so close to him. She breathed in his scent, wishing that they were anywhere else.

Up until now, she had never thought of Gibbs as more than a friend and protector. The feelings that welled up in her now were different, so intense—a fierce need to protect him, unimaginable fear of losing him, and love—an intense, overwhelming love like she'd never felt before. The fleeting thoughts were unsettling, but they were also undeniable.

After a few minutes, Abby started to feel Gibbs relax and his shivering subsided. Abby gripped him a little tighter and closed her eyes.

"Please don't let us die," she prayed. "Please don't let him die."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Any one seen Gibbs?" McGee asked. He had finally finished a report that should have been done yesterday.

"No," Ziva said as she walked behind McGee and started reading the report over his shoulder. McGee shot her a look of displeasure and minimized the computer window. She huffed and wandered back to her desk.

Just then, Ducky exited the elevator and walked into the bullpen.

"Has anyone seen my dear Abigail this morning? She's usually here by now," Ducky asked then continued, "We had a date to explore the lifecycle of the cockroach--interesting insects, these cockroaches. Did you know that they have been on the earth for more than four million years? That's an awfully—"

"We were just talking about Gibbs," Tony answered cutting Ducky off mid-sentence, "He's not here either."

"The last time I saw either of them was yesterday evening around 11:30. I heard Jethro offering to drive Abigail home," Ducky related, "and she accepted.

Tony looked at Ziva and raised his eyebrows suggestively. She smiled and glanced over at McGee and the three of them snickered.

"Doesn't Gibbs have a rule about that?" McGee questioned.

"Yeah, it's Rule #12: Never date a coworker," Tony responded dialing Gibbs' cell phone number.

The phone rang and rang and then eventually went to voice mail.

"Then there's Rule # 3," Tony said, his tone changing from light-hearted to serious, "Never be unreachable."

Before anyone could say another word, Tony had grabbed his keys and was heading for his car. Ziva and McGee jumped up and followed him out. Soon, the team was tracing the path to Abby's apartment.

It had rained all night, but now it seemed to be letting up.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until there were about ten minutes out. They came upon some broken glass on the opposite side of the road. Tony pulled over to investigate.

Getting out of the car, Ziva was the first to see the overturned car hidden down the embankment in a lightly wooded area.

"Over here!" she yelled sliding down the muddy bank, her boots nearly engulfed by the thick, deep, mud. Tony leapt ahead of her. As he did, he started slipping and put his hand down to stop himself from falling.

"Damn it!" he shouted, observing the streak of mud down the left side of his pants. "I just got these!"

When he got to the driver's side door, he fell to his hands and knees to see inside. The driver's side window was broken and the door was ajar. Leaning down, he peered inside the car. The car was empty but Gibbs' keys were still in the ignition. He reached in and removed them.

Then he made his way to the trunk of the car. It was as though no one breathed while he gingerly placed the key into the trunk lock and turned it.

With an audible pop, the trunk opened. "Clear," he shouted, much to everyone's relief.

McGee made his way to the passenger's side door. There was blood on the door handle and more blood on the ground. "It looks like someone didn't walk away from this unscathed," he told the others.

Fanning out, the team started searching for Gibbs and Abby.

"Abby?" Ziva yelled.

Then Tony noticed something partially hidden under some wet leaves that made his heart miss a beat. It was a bullet casing.

"What the hell happened here?" He said rhetorically, holding up the casing and staring at Gibbs' car.

Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Abby ran her hand over her head. It still hurt and she was pretty sure she had a concussion. She decided to close her eyes--just for a minute--fearful that if she went to sleep, she might not wake up. But soon, she was slumbering, her arm still cradled around Gibbs.

Hours later, she startled awake, disoriented, and unsure how long she'd been out. Rain was pounding down on the wooden door and a stream of water trickled in between boards.

"Gibbs?" she asks tentatively. She couldn't fathom what would happen if he didn't answer her.

"I'm still here, Ab," he said weakly, his eyes closed.

Realizing she'd been holding her breath waiting for his answer, Abby relaxed. Her watch said it was 6:30 a.m. They had been captive for nearly seven hours.

"Gotta get Gibbs to a hospital," she kept repeating to herself. He was getting weaker as the hours passed. Now it seemed too great an effort just lift his head or open his eyes.

Releasing herself from his grip, she slowly stood up. Her head still hurt, but the dizziness and nausea has subsided.

Abby emptied the nails out of a glass jar and wiped out the dust and dirt. Then, holding it up to the trickle of water coming in around the door, she tried to collect the rainwater.

"Gibbs?" she said gently lifting his head and holding the jar to his lips, "Here's some water." He took a small sip and didn't cough, so he took another one. Once he was done, she drank what was left and held it back under the door boards to fill it again.

"I've got to find away out of here," she said to herself rising to her feet. Abby took three steps up the ladder and attempted to push open the cellar door. It didn't give. The door was made of wood slats reinforced with steel plates. She began feeling around the walls of the cellar looking for a loose board or a weakness in the foundation, but she couldn't find one.

Looking at the ceiling, Abby began calculating how the cellar might be built and how much dirt was above them.

"I think I may have an idea," she mumbled aloud to herself with a little enthusiasm.

"Share it with me, Abbs," Gibbs whispered opening his eyes briefly.

"Okay," she began, kneeling down at his side. "Well, I figure that the door is about 3 feet above the cellar ceiling. That means that there is about 600 cubic feet of dirt above us. If I were to try to dig us out from that corner by the door, I would need to create a 4-foot by 2-foot diameter tunnel to the surface. If I dug the tunnel at a 45-degree angle—to prevent the dirt from falling directly on my head--I would end up displacing about 16 cubic feet of dirt. Now, moist topsoil weighs about 90 pounds per cubic foot, so that's 1,440 pounds of dirt. Given the dimensions of this cellar, it should be able to hold about 600 cubic feet of dirt—much less than I need to dig out, so theoretically, I should be able to complete this without filling the room--if my calculations are correct."

Despite his discomfort, Gibbs could feel the sides of his mouth turning up into a weak smile as he listened to her plan. He respected her intelligence and if he had to be stuck in a cellar with someone, he was happy it was Abbs.

It was about 8 a.m. when Abby enacted her plan. She pulled two shelving units from the wall and turned them on their sides to create an area that would contain the dirt and prevent it from piling up near Gibbs. She used an overturned wood crate as a stepstool so she could reach the ceiling.

Next, she wedged a rusty, old, weed puller under the corner ceiling board. Using the weed puller as a lever, she was able to dislodge the board. She did the same thing for two adjacent boards and then she began pulling down dirt.

At first, it fell in large clumps just by hitting it with a small rusted shovel, but soon she ran into an elaborate root system. Some of the roots were three inches in diameter. "There must be an awfully big tree nearby," she thought. This was going to take longer than she'd hoped.

After an hour of steady digging, she stopped to catch her breath. Her head was pounding and she was craving a Caf-Pow. She held her hands under the trickle of rainwater and then wiped them on her shirt.

She knelt down next to Gibbs and gently cupped his face in her hands. Even though the cellar was cold, he was sweating and his skin was hot to the touch.

"You've got a fever," she said softly, kissing his forehead, letting her lips linger until they were moist with his sweat.

Gibbs nodded, but did not speak.

Abby ripped a strip of material from her coat lining and dipped it in the water. Then, she gently pressed it against his head.

He wasn't doing well.

Abby cradled his head in her lap and gently stroked his hair.

"Don't you leave me Gibbs," she tried to say firmly, her voice cracking as she held back her tears, "That's an order."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It was a few hours later when the results came back from Trace. Even before McGee read the report, the team had a gut feeling that the answer wasn't good. The blood belonged to Gibbs.

In the mean time, they had spent the morning fanning out, along with an army of other law officials, to search the surrounding neighborhood. No one had seen or heard anything. The evidence at the scene was slim. It's as though Gibbs and Abby had been hit and then vanished.

The team had searched Abby's apartment. It didn't appear that she had made it home last night. Her bed was still made and they could find no trace of her keys, coat, or the clothes she had worn the day before.

Things were strikingly different when they entered Gibbs' house--someone had definitely been there. The back door was kicked in, things were overturned, but the most damaging pieces of evidence were the two cell phones sitting on a table near the kitchen. Tony immediately recognized them—one belonged to Gibbs, the other to Abby.

With a gloved hand, Tony picked up the one that belonged to Gibbs. There were two messages on it. The first message was the one that Tony had left for Gibbs earlier that morning. But the second message came from Abby's phone number. Hitting the speaker button, Tony held the phone up toward Ziva and McGee.

"If you're listening to this, then you know that Gibbs is gone," the voice said. "I was only after him, but that little forensic rock chick got in the way."

Tony winced as he glanced at Ziva.

"If he hadn't tried to protect her, I might not have shot him," the voice continued, "But sometimes things don't go as planned. However, I can tell you that they are stashed away forever. Now that I feel Gibbs has paid his debt to me, I am at peace just like Gibbs and Abby. Don't waste time trying to find me--I'm long gone."

"Nathan West?" Ziva questioned. The team had been looking for him for the past few days.

"Yes, damn it," Tony answered, resting his head in his hands. What direction should they take? What should they do next? Without Gibbs, Tony felt it was his duty to lead the team. Normally, he would jump at the chance, but this time it was different. This time it was about his teammates—his friends.

"Maybe they aren't dead," McGee said jolting Tony out of his thoughts. "Think about the way the message was worded," he continued. "West said that they were 'stashed away.' He didn't say they were dead."

"We need to trace that call," Ziva added, "Maybe it will give us an idea of where they are."

Tony collected the phones and the team raced back to the office. If McGee could figure out where the phones were located when the last call was made, it might give them some insight into where Nathan West had been.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

It was just after four in the afternoon when Abby stopped digging. She had felt the ground above her give and reached her hand up through the soil. For a second she thought of that scene in the movie, "Carrie." The hand coming up from the grave had both scared and delighted her. She loved getting the chills when she watched a movie and that one was a classic.

Abby pulled the wooden ladder over to the corner to give her more height. She pulled down more dirt and then poked her head out, squinting at the daylight. She was in a field, about 10 yards from an old farmhouse. It was rundown, like maybe it had been abandon years ago. Some of the windows were broken and others had mismatched pieces of wood nailed over them.

There was a huge oak tree behind her and an old barn sat a few yards off to her left. She didn't see any animals and it looked like part of the barn roof was caved in. One curious thing that caught her eye was a hose. It was like a fire hose, and it was attached to an old watering trough spigot. It was lying in the grass with the end of it resting near the door of the cellar. It looked new—a stark contrast to the rest of the farm.

Pulling her head back into the cellar, she stepped down the ladder, climbed over the pile of dirt and made her way to Gibbs. He was motionless, his breathing slow and labored.

"I'm going to go get help," she whispered in his ear, "Please try to hold on a little longer. I promise I'll be back soon."

She thought she saw his head nod and she bent down and kissed him on the cheek and then on the side of his head, lingering in his hair, his scent momentarily filling her thoughts.

Then, taking once glace back at him, she crawled up the ladder and out of the cellar.

Abby sprinted across the field and was near the east side of the house, when she saw something move near the barn. It was a man carrying an ax walking toward the cellar. Startled, she watched as he unlocked the cellar doors, opened them wide, and then threw the hose into the hole.

Now, he was walking back to the spigot by the barn. He was going to drown Gibbs. "No!" she screamed suddenly. Abby doubled over as she felt her stomach clench, tasting the bitterness in her throat. "This can't be happening," she thought, but she was watching it happen.

The man turned on the spigot full force. He then turned when he heard her scream. Making eye contact with her, he looked confused—like he was thinking, "How the hell did you get out here?" Then he started walking toward her.

It was only a minute or two before Gibbs felt the cold water seeping in around him. He opened his eyes. The daylight coming through the cellar door was too bright and it seemed to blur everything. For a moment, he was unsure what was happening.

Abby ran to the front of the house but there wasn't anyplace she could stop to catch her breath. She continued around until the barn came into view. She needed to turn off the water.

As she ran toward the barn, the man with the ax intercepted her. She raced into the barn and locked the door behind her. Within seconds, she heard the sound of the ax smashing against the door, splintering the wood, the old door unable to hold him back.

The barn was small and the south end was littered with wood from the fallen roof. As she heard the barn doors give way to the ax, Abby ducked into the nearest stall and hid. As soon as she knelt down and gazed around, she knew she'd made a grave error. The stall only had one door and if he found her, she would be trapped. Her heart felt like it was beating outside her chest and she thought about Gibbs. She couldn't believe she'd let him down like this. She didn't know how she would ever be able to forgive herself. A tear rolled down her cheek, but she didn't move.

The water level in the cellar continued to rise. Realizing what was going on, Gibbs pushed himself up into a sitting position, leaning against the wall for support. He knew he had to get out of the cellar soon, but he didn't have the strength. He tried to bring himself up to standing, but robbed of oxygen and blood, and paralyzed by the frigid water, he barely made it to his knees. Gibbs crumbled back down and for a moment, he thought about Abby. She had tried so hard to help him. He didn't want to leave her like this, but he knew he wasn't going to be able to crawl out of the cellar alone. Surprisingly, he felt a sense of peace once he resigned himself to the inevitable. There wasn't much else he could do and he was tired of fighting. He just wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep. "I hate leaving you like this, Abby," he said quietly. "I know you tried your best and I'm thankful for all you did for me." Then, he closed his eyes and waited for the water to rise over him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6 - The Final Chapter**

McGee worked feverishly trying to determine which base stations were pinged while Nathan West left his ominous message.

"Can't you do this any faster?" Tony asked, standing there feeling useless.

"I've got the base stations and the GPS information. By interpolating signals between adjacent antenna towers, I should be able to narrow things down," McGee answered calmly.

Tony looked at him like he was speaking French, but didn't request further clarification because he didn't want to slow McGee down.

Studying the map on the computer screen, McGee shouted, "There!" pointing at a spot about 20 miles from where Gibbs' car was found. Before he could turn around, Ziva and Tony were heading for the door. McGee grabbed his coat and ran after them.

Abby could hear the man breathing heavily as he walked through the barn in this morbid game of hide and seek. He was getting closer and closer. She could smell him—cigarettes and stale alcohol--as he stood just outside the stall door.

Then, he stepped inside.

"My brother warned me you might try to get away, but I promised him I'd see to it that you never left this farm," he told her.

As Abby took a step backwards, she felt the wall behind her.

Grasping the handle of the ax, he continued, "I thought it might be hard to do this—you're such a pretty thing." Then he laughed and raised the ax, ready to strike. Abby closed her eyes. "Please forgive me Gibbs," she prayed.

"He can't hear you," the man laughed. Abby opened her eyes for a moment—just in time to see him start to bring the ax down.

Suddenly, a shot rang out and Abby felt the weight of the man fall against her. It happened so quickly that she thought she'd been hit by the ax, but as the man fell to the ground, Abby saw Ziva standing at the barn door, her gun raised. For a second, Abby was stunned, but then she shouted, "Gibbs!"

Abby ran past Ziva, out the barn door, and toward the cellar. Tony, who was right outside the door, raced after her. When she got to the cellar door, her heart sank. The cellar floor was about four feet under water and there was no sign of Gibbs. "In here," she motioned to Tony. Before she could make another move, Tony had jumped in and was already feeling around. Within seconds, he had located Gibbs and was dragging him up to the surface. McGee and Ziva helped pull him out. Gibbs heart was still beating, but he wasn't breathing.

Laying him down on the grass, McGee started doing rescue breathing. After a few breaths, Gibbs began choking. McGee rolled him onto his side and covered him with his coat, while Gibbs expelled the water. Now, he was breathing again, and had even started moving a little.

"Gibbs," Abby cried.

Abby sat down and gently placed his head in her hands, alternately kissing his forehead and gently running her fingers through his wet hair, trying to soothe him.

The quiet was broken by the sound of the Medevac helicopter coming in from the west. Ziva motioned them to a large flat area in the field.

"I'm so sorry I let you down, Gibbs," Abby said through sobs, her tears falling on his cheek, "I'm so sorry."

Gibbs opened his eyes. In a barely audible whisper, he said, "Abs, you could never let me down." Then he made the sign for "I love you," as the medical team ran to his side ready to begin their work.


End file.
